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Handwriting and Mathematics
I grade stacks of homework exercises nearly all handwritten mostly in pencil. So the disappearance of handwriting skills as lamented by modern authors is alarming. I would argue that handwriting,...
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Customer Service
I had lasertripsy for a kidney stone last week and was intimately immersed in our health care system and my physiological responses. I am not recovered and can look forward to more procedures. During...
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Completing the Square Versus The Quadratic Formula
My college algebra class is learning to find the zeros of polynomial functions, so we are solving lots of quadratic equations. If the quadratic expression is not easily factorable, I have been saying....
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What to Know About a Function
When I introduce the concept of function in my college algebra class, I emphasize that the formula is not enough. To really know a function is to know its formula and its shape (graph) and its domain...
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Math Makes Me Happy
I wrote previously about how I love math and it makes me sad. This article, Physics, Logic, Topology and Computation: A Rosetta Stone by John C. Baez and Mike Stay makes me very happy especially the...
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Divisibility Test for Thirteen
My department chair, Sherry Ettlich, sent us a link to this video which shows a quick (new?) method of determining if a number is divisible by 7. After I figured out how it worked, it occurred to me to...
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Divisibility by 17
I thought that a test for divisibility by 17 ought to work like the test for divisibility by 13 that I described in my last post. No such luck. But something similar does work. How to Check if a...
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Factoring Three Digit Numbers using Divisibility Tests
To keep myself occupied when I walk through town, I like to factor three digit numbers. Since Oregon license plate identifiers have three numerical digits and three alphabetic characters, I have a...
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Pythagorean Theorem – Cool Proof
I was taken with a “Proof Without Words” of Ptolemy’s Theorem by William Derrick and James Hirstein in an old(Nov 2012) edition of The College Mathematics Journal. I had this vision of triangles...
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A Year of Wondering VI: Serendipity – Too Rare
In the space of two days two different students in two different classes with two very different majors went out of their way to mention to me that the topic we just covered was at the same time being...
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What’s Wrong with MOOCs
MOOC’s are massive open online courses. Read about them here. The premise of this post is that what’s wrong with MOOCs is the same thing that is wrong with the current lecture – homework – test –...
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Good Teachers Have More Than One Model
When students seem hesitant to ask questions in class or come to my office, I often say, “Please ask me questions. Every question you ask makes me a better teacher and I want to be a better teacher.”...
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So Right On I Wanted to Shout
Kate Nonesuch’s post Neither Kind or Patient made me want to shout or cry. No comment I could make would do it justice. Incisive wisdom about teaching. Go read it.
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The Joy of Explaining
I always review my lecture notes the day before I cover the material. Besides simply re-familiarizing myself with the topic, I get to sleep on it. When I wake up the next morning or possibly in the...
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Proofs – Escaping Print Media
This post is prompted by irritation and, dare I say, love – irritation at reading to understand yet another drab mathematical proof and love for the FORTH programming language as a thinking tool. My...
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Uselessly Wise
Older and wiser. The more attentive experience, the more wisdom. Years ago I handcrafted a stone house. I was a professional carpenter for five years. So I have opinions about house building and...
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Edging Coloring Complete Graphs – Two Examples
Dr. John Caughman from Portland State University presented our Kieval Lectures this year. He described rainbow graphs and matching, rectangle graphs and lattice paths. I intended to take notes because...
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Powers of 9/10′s
An example of one of my favorite surprise calculations comes up in the context of quantum computing. The idea is that if you have a process that gets things right 90% of the time and you repeat the...
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Quantitative Literacy – The Nearly Impossible Dream
An essential component of a liberal arts education is quantitative literacy (QL) which is defined by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) as “‘a habit of mind’, competency, and...
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